No. 75 of 108
August 27, 2025
August 23 marked the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. There were many stories of response and lack of response, disparate impacts, infrastructure collapse, comparisons of then and now. A straggler story worth noting: the story of the Peggy Martin rose. The only plant, except for a few bulbs, that survived prolonged submersion in the storm water of Peggy Martin’s yard, was a rose of undetermined heritage. Cuttings taken from the thornless, hardy climbing bush have propagated to hundreds of thousands of plants across the country. (For pics, go to #ShowUsYourPeggy) Horticulturalists have been unable to determine the genealogy of the rose that grew as a plant from a friend in Peggy Martin’s yard. They believe that the rose’s genetics was the key to its survival. Peggy Martin believes her parents, who were lost in the storm, wanted to leave her with something to remember them by. Roses have been found in fossils dating back millions of years; first believed to be cultivated in China about 5,000 years ago. Also today, an incomprehensible act of violence in which praying children were hurt and killed.
Survival can be about Flourishing. Beauty. Love. Remembrance. Friendship. Cultivation. Mysterious wonder. Ancestors passing worthy traits from generation to generation for thousands of years, and millions before that in ways that are just about the tenacity of life. In a rose. In us. While we can and have survived through horrendous moments, we need not be horrendous to survive.